San Francisco Chronicle column: low-acid diets

My monthly Food Matters column in the San Francisco Chronicle answers readers’ questions and these tend to be about nutrition rather than food politics. Today’s column is about diets aimed at controlling the amount of acid excreted in urine:

The writers contend that a high acid diet causes bone loss and other negative health outcomes. The book is so well documented and the theory so logically explained that I find it compelling.

However, I am not a scientist and would appreciate your opinion.

A: Ordinarily I would not bother to read a book with the word “Revolutionary” in its title. In diet books, “revolutionary” invariably means using a grain of scientific truth to construct a dietary theory that contradicts current thinking but cannot be proven by current research.

But two readers asked about this book and I was curious about it for another reason. Last year, I gave a talk at a spa where I was seated at dinner next to a couple who announced that they were following a low-acid diet. To my amazement, they excused themselves during the meal to measure the pH of their urine.

Stay with me: pH is a measure of acidity or hydrogen ion concentration. pH 7 is neutral. Above 7 is basic or alkaline. Below 7 is acidic.

I could not believe that anyone would bother to measure urine pH, let alone leave dinner to do so. The pH of blood is tightly regulated and must stay within a slightly alkaline range of 7.36 to 7.4. Bicarbonate buffering systems keep it that way, and excreting excess acid is exactly what the kidney is supposed to do.

The authors are proponents of vegan diets. Here, they argue that small increases in blood acidity cause calcium to be leached from bones to help neutralize it. Over time, these small losses weaken bones and lead to osteoporosis.

Adding calcium to the diet, they claim, is not enough to replace the losses. They parse the results of 1,200 research studies to argue that dairy foods cannot protect against osteoporosis. Instead, low acidity – meaning too much meat – provides the best current explanation for worldwide rates of osteoporosis.

The authors provide an entertaining list of the acid-producing potential of more than 100 foods. As they put it, “flesh foods”- beef, chicken and fish – produce the most acid, with grains coming in second.

Acidity depends largely, but not exclusively, on protein content. All proteins form acid, but “flesh” proteins yield more. They contain more sulfurous amino acids than do plant proteins. Meat and grains also have more acid-forming phosphates.

In contrast, fruits and vegetables contain loads of alkali-producing potassium and magnesium. They have minus numbers: apples (-2 mEq), potatoes and cauliflower (-4), and avocados (-8), with the alkali prize going to raisins (-21).

To prove this theory, research must demonstrate four things: foods have differential effects on urine pH, acid-producing diets cause calcium to be excreted, calcium excretion reflects loss of calcium from bones, and acid-induced calcium losses lead to osteoporosis.

Research easily confirms that animal foods and grains produce more acid than do fruits and vegetables and cause calcium to be excreted in urine. Evidence for everything else, however, is much less certain. Although some studies find bone losses with high-acid diets, a recent “meta-analysis” published in the Journal of Bone Mineral Research concluded that urine calcium does not reflect bone calcium. It found little justification for the idea that alkaline foods prevent bone calcium losses.

Kidney specialists agree. I asked Dr. Jerome Lowenstein, author of “Acids and Basics: A Guide to Understanding Acid-Base Disorders,” for comment. He says bone calcium is involved in maintaining normal blood pH, but so are many other factors.

Normal kidneys maintain normal blood pH over a very wide range of diets. Diet may affect acid-base balance in people with damaged or diseased kidneys, but matters less to people with normal kidneys. Bone losses do occur in kidney disease but not because bone serves as an acid buffer.

“If it did, patients with advanced kidney disease would become invertebrate within a couple of years,” he says.

How to make sense of this? To prevent osteoporosis, the authors promote a vegan diet based on low-acid fruits, vegetables and beans, with no or minimal acid-producing meat, poultry, fish, eggs, cheese and grains.

Revolutionary? Hardly.

Last month’s report from the 2010 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee called for a shift in food intake patterns to a more plant-based diet, one with more vegetables, beans, fruits, whole grains, nuts, seeds, seafood and low-fat milk products, and only moderate amounts of lean meats, poultry and eggs.

I am still laughing that the couple not only left the table to test their urine but shared this information with other people who were eating!
Thanks for a interesting and humorous take on low-acid diets. My question is about soda. Soda is extremely acidic and I have always understood this level of acidity was indeed bad for teeth, GI function and perhaps bones. Would you agree or disagree?

Crazy food diets are nothing new, and the fact otherwise intelligent people follow them is not a surprise. People can be convinced of the craziest of ideas, and believe them to be the gospel truth.

Anabella

I’ve read that an acidic medium (from most organic acids) actually improves calcium and Iron absorption… as far as I know, the only ones that prevents calcium absorption are fitic, and oxalic acid. from this point of view… it wouldn’t be better a slightly acidic intake of foods?

Jo Doorley

I too am curious about he effects of acidic fizzy drinks/ sodas on teenage girls calicum up take in particular.

Thanks so much for offering your take on this “revolutionary” diet. I’ve wondered about the validity of it, but find that most people either swear by it or believe it’s crazy. Very balanced evaluation!

If you want to improve your chances of avoiding or diminishing the affects of Osteoporosis then exercise is the best answer.

Brisk walking or light running is sufficient to let the body know that your bones need to be stronger to cope with the extra impact pressure and this promotes bone strengthening activity (as well as heart strengthening from the increased exercise). Happy to provide citations.

Anthro

Nice parsing of the material. I was wondering, though, why you seem to find the term “flesh” foods worthy of quotation marks? As a vegetarian (not totally vegan), I have always referred to foods from the body of an animal as flesh. Meat is a cultural term that avoids calling it what it is–flesh. I find that carnivores tend to cringe a bit when I refer to their food as flesh and I find this amusing.

As a full on flesh eater, near paleo, the term flesh makes me super hungry. Much more appetizing than meat.

Zach Brodsky

It’s ALL about Ph. The first rule in health is to drink 9-10ph water. preferably ionized for micro clustering ( trans-dermal effect ) and low -ORP values for a powerful antioxidant effect. I use the Jupiter Melody/Isis. Here’s to everyone’s health.